It’s A Wrap – Week In Review February 5, 2012

Open mouth, insert foot. The thing about primary season is that those of us who are interested and affected observers will be presented with several sides of the same face. There is the side the candidates want us to see; the side the media chooses to reveal; the version presented by the comedians who, thankfully, make us laugh at the folly of it all; and, of course, the real side that the candidates want to keep hidden.

This past week, Mitt Romney opened his big, overly privileged, phony mouth and said that he ”is not concerned about the very poor“. Sure, there was more to his statement but, let’s face it, that is the part that resonates. Of course, to deflect, Mitt’s Super PAC is running ads that remind us of the time Newt Gingrich stated that he wanted to do away with bi-lingual education because Spanish is the “language of the ghetto”. How lucky for us that these are the people who want to lead the nation! *Rolling my eyes* Isn’t it great that they remember that they’d have to lead ALL of us who live here, whether they like the languages we speak or the neighbourhoods we come from?

How are we supposed to trust these people as leaders? We’re a nation of people who still need to have healthcare issues resolved, our crumbling cities repaired and our educational system revamped. With statements like those, I don’t have any doubt that this nation wouldn’t be any different from countries with noted classist struggles.

Maybe for the gilded and gated community types, their version of utopia means not having to address those things that concern the rest of us. But that’s not realistic; the recent clashes between those who have and those who just want a fair break show otherwise. The haves and their leaders must get real; even exceptionally disrespectful politicians and their followers must, at some point, come together to figure out how to resolve the nation’s issues. Our problems are not getting smaller; while we’re listening to politician’s petty snipes, critical problems still linger such as climate change and the very notion that it’s still acceptable to target entire groups of people.

We’re not going to break down the walls between us if we’re still looking only at what’s right in front of our faces but refusing to see the big picture. But perhaps, for now, that is how things have to be; people being led around by politicians until we see for ourselves the impact of not paying attention to the greater good for us all. Whether we use social media to make change or exercise our individual right to vote — in the end, it’s the people who hold the power.